Scared of the Rose
by Yellowtail555
Summary: "They're a mess. They're cousins, for Merlin's sake, and while you'd think that's the worst of it- it's not. They're the outcasts of the family" Rose and Al struggle with a relationship that's far from perfect.


_The story's 1,065 words without the authors note and it's for Lady's The Pairing One Hour/ Hardest Challenge for one hour. My challenge was to write 1,000 words in one hour with the pairing RosexAl (my OTP!) and the prompt: Hogwarts Grounds. I wish they came into play more but I had this idea and it didn't really leave room for them. Sorry._

They're a mess. They're cousins, for Merlin's sake, and while you'd think that's the worst of it- it's not. They're the outcasts of the family; they won't even acknowledge Al by now and Rose has been called a bitch to her face by her cousins so many times that she starts avoiding them.

Al knows that when she comes to him, crying on the Hogwarts Grounds, he should comfort her as a cousin would and nothing more. He shouldn't kiss her as she wraps her arms around him and he shouldn't smile when tears roll from her cheek to his. She knows she shouldn't wrap her arms around his neck and press her cheek to his heart when James turns away from his own little brother without a word. It's not what cousins do.

They were each other's first kiss when they were young enough to pretend they were practicing for someone else and then, when they were older, they realized there was no 'someone else'. They had to keep playing with the cards they were dealt, even when those cards were something you could never show anyone else. Rose had a killer poker face (always had, her father had taught her the game when she was little), though, and Al could make it through as her partner.

They're slowly breaking in a family where no one's perfect but everyone hides it. It's not that they're the most extravagant or the ones worst at hiding it, it's just that fate drives a hard bargain and they're been stuck at the short end of the stick for as long as they can remember. At least everyone else has each other.

The Gryffindor Common Room has never been especially safe or like a home for either of them, they both found themselves preferring the peace and quiet of the grounds. The teachers say your House is your family while you're at Hogwarts but family lies and insults you and picks you up only to throw you down. Family sneaks around and tells you that you're no good and cheats at cards. And before long, someone peeks at Rose's cards (and Al is hiding behind her, wishing he could act as well as she does) and then it's out.

Nowhere is safe anymore and then the duo has to do what they do best. They run from the spotlight to anywhere that looks safe in a crazy, life-changing sprint. Al manages to sneak out during a Hogsmeade trip and Rose makes it until winter break when she 'goes home' and apparates away as soon as the train pulls into the station. They meet up at a flat, rented in a different name, with Rose in tears and Al finds himself doing what he should have, according to their other cousins, all those years ago. He hugs her, like a cousin might, and then apparates away.

She follows him, though, because she's always thinking one step ahead of him and even though he's surprised to end up where he does, she isn't. She glances around his parent's garden without a comment, calmly, before

"I can't go on like this, Rose, I can't. They hate me."

"They'll always hate you, Al. Nothing that you do is ever going to change that."

"No!" She had wrapped her arms around him, like any of his cousins might have done, but then kisses him. He pushes her off, impatiently. "We're cousins, Rose. We can't do this anymore."

He leaves her in tears and it's the only thing he regrets. He spends five years in the muggle world, afraid of what he might find (he's not a true Gryffindor, he always knew it) and afraid, more than anything else, of having to face his boggart again. When he was thirteen, his greatest fear was that Rose's expression would falter for a second, and everyone would find out about them. And now they have, and it wasn't as bad as he figured. It was what came next that worried him and so, now his fear has got to be seeing Rose and her telling him that she hates him. They all hate him, and she's one of them, now.

One day he walks into Diagon Alley again, his head up and his eyes daring anyone to challenge him. She's the only one who ever does, everyone else a bit too frightened of the Potter boy who went wrong, but she doesn't. She sits at a table eating ice cream and laughing with Lucy- who never judged, a Ravenclaw girl- who was always her best friend, and a few other cousins. It wasn't her. It was never her they hated. It was always him.

He almost forces himself to walk over there and join them except that he remembers that they use to tell him that they didn't care if he died; that he had to have beat his girlfriend; and a million other things- when they were still in school. He told himself, then, that he wouldn't let himself care but he did.

He turns and walks away but Rose looks up and sees him, hurrying over to him.

"Look…"

"Don't." He shakes his head. "I don't want to hear it."

"Do you care for anyone other than yourself?"

"I cared for you."

"No, you obviously didn't." She looks almost scared to be talking to him and he doesn't want to know what lies she's been hearing.

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It means, that if you cared you wouldn't have left me in the middle of your family's garden that night. Sometimes, Albus Potter, I hate you."

He, for one nearly happy moment, thinks she's a boggart and that this is all fake but then she puts a hand on his shoulder. "I'm happy now and you're here to ruin it. You _always_ ruin it."

"Rosie…"

"Don't you call me that. Everyone that I hate calls me that. You, Hugo, Dad… just leave me alone."

Al watches the only girl he'd ever loved walk away from him forever and he realizes that there's no other feeling like it. He thought he was scared of Rose telling him she hated him but she'd already done that. He didn't want to think of what else she could do to break him. He didn't want to think about how all his fears revolved around her.


End file.
